This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Wireless communications networks have expanded significantly, thereby increasing redundant coverage in most populated areas and providing multiple access points for user equipment (e.g., cell phones, smart phones, laptop computers and tablets). As such, user equipment typically has the potential choice of establishing communications with more than one access point. The connection can be established with more than one base station, sectors within a base station, or channels within a sector. With the proliferation of these access points comes increased power consumption due to the common practice in conventional systems of leaving the base station transmitters turned on at all times (even when the traffic flowing through the transmitters is far below the capacity of the transmitters).
The following abbreviations that may be found in the specification and/or the drawing figures are defined as follows:    3GPP third generation partnership project    ASIC application specific integrated circuit    BS base station    CN core network    CSG closed subscriber group    DL downlink (eNB towards UE)    DPC distributed power controller    DSP digital signal processor    DTC distributed traffic controller    eNB E-UTRAN Node B (evolved Node B)    EPC evolved packet core    ES energy savings    E-UTRAN evolved UTRAN (LTE)    FIFO first in first out    FPGA field programmable gate array    HSPA high speed packet access    IMT-A international mobile telephony-advanced    ITU international telecommunication union    ITU-R ITU radiocommunication sector    LTE long term evolution of UTRAN (E-UTRAN)    LTE-A LTE advanced    MAC medium access control (layer 2, L2)    MM/MME mobility management/mobility management entity    Node B base station    O&M operations and maintenance    OAM&P operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning    PC power constraint    PDCP packet data convergence protocol    PHY physical (layer 1, L1)    QoS quality of service    RAN1 technical specification group radio access network working group 1    Rel release    RBS radio base station    RF radio frequency    RLC radio link control    RRC radio resource control    RRM radio resource management    S-GW serving gateway    UE user equipment, such as a mobile station, mobile node or mobile terminal    UL uplink (UE towards eNB)    UTRAN universal terrestrial radio access network